Dale_Husband

Indeed...

Some people criticize the Baha'i Faith for this or that reason; but the real reason for their criticism is that they do not want to live by its laws. From that point, they fabricate various objections. 

No one should want to live under laws that are not based on logic or empirical necessity. Two examples will suffice to show how Baha'i laws turn out to be stupid.

1. Shoghi Effendi is buried in London, where he died on a visit, not Haifa where he lived and where the Baha'i World Center is. Why? Because Baha'u'llah commanded that a Baha'i be buried near where he died! If a Baha'i is riding in a plane that crashes in a remote area, why should he be buried there and his body not brought back to his family in his home country?
2. If a man and a woman want to marry, they are required by Baha'i law to have parental consent from both sides. But what if the parents are non-Baha'is? And what if at least one of the parents are racists and the couple is biracial? That actually defeats the greater Baha'i principle of Race Unity! If both the bride and the groom are ADULTS, they should be treated like adults, period.

My objections are not mere "fabrications". I read what I find in the Baha'i writings and what I see from people like you and react directly to them, Brent Poirier. The implication that I am making things up is libel. Don't EVER pull that stunt again!

Dale Husband, the Honorable Skeptic

The Baha'i Principle of the Independent Investigation of Truth

In the passage you quote from the Baha'i website there is a quote from Baha'u'llah where He says that His intent is that people develop to the point that they see with their own eyes. Inasmuch as the fundamental principle of the Baha'i Faith is that there is a succession of Manifestations of God, and that it is important that the people in every age recognize the latest one; yes, I believe this principle of investigation is primarily related to that search; that is, its most important application is to search out the Manifestation of God, without regard to whether your parents or siblings or friends accept it.  I think this principle is also related to the word "insaf" which is an Arabic word meaning fairmindedness, open-mindedness, having an open and unbiased mind, seeing with justice (as it is translated in the second Arabic Hidden Word, "The Best-beloved of all things in my sight is Justice).  It is related to seeing with our own eyes, not accepting a faith because our neighbors do.

In one of Plato's Dialogues, Crito, he examines the issue of caring about the opinions of other people--which people's opinions are important.  He points out that the athlete cannot take the advice of everyone. He needs to search for a coach, and then when satisfied that the coach knows what he's doing -- do what the coach says; and ignore what the rest of the people say.  This is the same thing in the Baha'i Faith. I gather from what you have written, that for some time you were a member of the Baha'i Faith, and that you left it. One thing you may not have properly understood, is the Covenant. As Baha'u'llah promised that His successors Abdu'l-Baha and the Universal House of Justice would be divinely guided; Abdu'l-Baha promised that His successors the Guardian and the Universal House of Justice would be divinely guided.  This is the "twin Covenants" of Baha'u'llah and Abdu'l-Baha, written of by Shoghi Effendi.

And yes, it is an important Baha'i teaching to turn to, and seek guidance from, the Universal House of Justice.  Humanity is dying to find guidance.  We have it. It's here, on Mount Carmel, and an important part of the Message we Baha'is give, is to seek the guidance of the Universal House of Justice.  And one feature of finding someone who is divinely guided, is that you accept what they say.

Some people criticize the Baha'i Faith for this or that reason; but the real reason for their criticism is that they do not want to live by its laws. From that point, they fabricate various objections. 

The Baha'i Faith claims to be no less than the revelation promised in the Old and New Testaments and the Qur'an.  Before criticizing it, look carefully.  You do not want to be in the position of directing people away from Truth.

The most important thing in life is to submit to the remedy brought by the Divine Physician. It brings health to the individual and to society.

Best regards,

Brent Poirier

//bahai-covenant.blogspot.com

//bahai-insights.blogspot.com

Baha'i persecution

I find it interesting that Baha'is often try to distract people from the problems with their religion by talking about how Baha'is have been persecuted in Iran and elsewhere. But in fact many different religions have suffered the persecution of their followers.....and then became persecutors themselves. Christians are themselves the worst example. Jews were mistreated for many centuries, but today they rule Israel and steal land from Palestinians in the West Bank. That the followers of a religion were ever persecuted does nothing to make the religion true or better than any other. So get off that, Baha'is.

Yes

That's a great saying of mine, indeed. Glad you liked it. But what is the subtext of what you're blabbering on about now?

 Ya NUR

Nuri

You own saying: "the Truth will set you free, but first it'll piss you off"!

(Love the the way you brought Bahai into it by the way)

sorry ha - Mr. AstriodX

Great Britain?

Elaborate please. The old WHORE of colonialism.
But let us not get into the inbreeding cult of the rulers clenching ever so miserably to the throne saved by USA for the mercy[dismay] of the world so that they could serve as servants and the puppets to the ever diminishing power of the Yankee might!

Damn the both, and refute me with logic.

P/S....... Indictment of Blair as accessory to the crimes in Iraq.... shall we talk about it my dear BritSlavedFriend

-YT 

Your old German crone monarch doesn't rule this Land

She rules over a minority bunch of left over colonials whose time is fast coming to its well deserved end. This land is ruled by the Rainbow Serpent and its peoples, on the one hand, and the gathering republican consensus, on the other. What the House of Windsor says or thinks is absolutely irrelevent to 99.9% of people here who can't stand, what we call "the bloody whinging poms and their pompous, anal ways!  Struth!"

Now quit trying to change the subject and off to bed with you, if you are knackered. Or are you trying to suggest something else here with that earlier reference  ;-) Naughty, naughty!

But all the same, your silly statement about the Windsor Queen also confirms the meaning of Perfidious Albion in relation to the Haifan Baha'is here. QED

Ya NUR

thanks

That's why its called "Great Britain" and our monarch rules Australia.

//www.royal.gov.uk/MonarchAndCommonwealth/Australia/Australia.aspx

Perfidious Albion

Find out what that means in England!

Ya NUR

Take your own advice

Denial is not a river in Egypt!

OK YA! as we say in England.

Nothing is being twisted

Dont try and twist things

//wahidazal.blogspot.com/

"as an Iranian nationalist I have found it very troubling over the years that the Baha'i organization's human rights violation claims on closer examination are largely bogus, contrived and often exagerrated. Indeed - other than 200 odd people who were executed by the regime for various crimes of corruption under the previous one (and not due to their religious affiliation, despite what Baha'is say) - it appears that the rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran have actually gone out of their way to accomodate the Baha'is inside Iran. ..... the Baha'is have also gone out of their way to fabricate or exagerrate human rights violations in Iran with Western human rights groups in order to maintain some bloated sense of relevence with the outside world and as a means by their leadership to divert the attention of its rank-and-file from internal problems, massive corruptions and misdeeds "

YOU ARE TERRIBLE!!!

Anyway, I'm knackered and will remove my najes and westoxicated being from this blog. Perhaps someone else can contribute. Goodnight my little Apostate Prophet.

And for the last time it is not MY organization. My Organisation is Genetics. Get that into your head.

You gotta be kidding!

When I say that the Haifan Baha'is have over the past 31 years monopolized the human rights violation discourse in the West to the disadvantage of other Iranian minority groups, how is this a lie? This is fact. Name me professional lobbyists in Washington DC or Brussels like yours who have successfully lobbied the US Congress or the EU parliament regarding the plight of Sufis or the Ahl-i-Haqq or Zoroastrians or the Shaykhi community under the (un)Islamic republic? Name me a single resolution in the US Congress or the EU parliament that condemned the regime in Iran for its genocidal attack against the Iranian Sufi Orders all throughout the 1990s? You can't because it never happened. Yet these violations occured, and continue to do so, but no one hears about them outside of small specialist circles because the Haifan Baha'is have financial muscle and political networks and leverage and professional lobbyists strategically placed and at their disposal that allows them to focus such questions exclusively on themselves rather than others.

The Egypt case was an outright farce and a blatant example of foreign neo-colonialist interference in the judicial affairs and internal administrative decisions of a sovereign country. The percentage of Haifan Baha'is in Egypt is of such negligible value as to be downright laughable. Yet because Egypt is dependent on foreign Western subsidies and its tourism industry, you people found an opening to lobby the US government and the EU to put pressure on the Egyptian government and its courts to backpeddle on a policy that was their sovereign right to determine as they initially had.

None of this has anything to do with Ahmaghi-nejads grotesque holocaust denial or the IRI's utterly ridiculous and transparent historical revisionisms. Rather it has to do with the kind of unfair politiking that your organization and its allies are well known for, and it has to do with feigning victimhood (mazlum nama'i) when you yourselves are perpetrators in other contexts.

Ya NUR

People like me? And what is that?

Half Najes and half Western? God that must be the worst combination.

What is knee jerk about my view? You lie about the injustices done to bahais by IRI, just as IRI are trying to deny the Holocaust. Why use this tactic? The people executed by the regime were executed for their faith, not because they were criminals. This is what I find wrong about what you are doing.  It is really disturbing.Most institutions become toxic, as they are run by people. So the Haifan Bahai one may have become. Who knows? I do not. But to paint the entire faith the way you are trying to is wrong and downright imoral.And who is playing victim? Have I ever slagged off any religion here? I am not the miserable moaner  I do not attack authority – look at the way you attack JJ. You are a handful. Yes, Denial is not a reiver in Egypt. But I will comment on what is false propaganda. And who has “attacked” this man? I have addressed his point from personal experience. Now I do not know about the issue of Apostates. And I said to you I sympathise about the shunning.  I do not understand that. Anyway, I do not want to argue with you, as we have had some memorable  arguments where you have accused me of all sorts of unfair things.

"I live and let live, I do not challenge authority"

Well, let's apply your personal philosophy to current circumstances in Iran under the (un)Islamic republic. Instead of criticizing the regime let's start criticizing the Greens and the opposition instead as individuals "resort[ing] to malicious slander due to bitterness lose[ing] all credibility and sympathy even with the patient."

Your point of view, Asteroidx, is the same reactionary knee-jerkism and pro-authoritarian innanity that the regime in Iran regularly employs about its own malcontents. You just apply it in the context of Haifan Bahaism whereas they apply it  in that of Khomeinist Islamism and the VF. Juan Cole actually wrote a paper years ago comparing the contemporary Haifan Bahai scene to Khomeinism in Iran. I think you can still find this thing on his personal website.

As countless people are beginning to discover, there is something deeply wrong and at core rotten with Haifan Bahaism. You people can play victim to your critics as long as you like, but whether here at IC or elsewhere online the stories and expose documentation is actually beginning to have a mass trickle out effect on the general non-Bahai consciousness such that people are beginning to come around  and take the critics more seriously whereas the Haifan Bahais are slowly but surely becoming the ones losing the credibility. It doesn't have to be this way. But as long as you people continue this charade of blaming the victims and feigning victimhood (mazlum-nama'i) and continue in this transparent and disengenuous table-turning that is ultimately making you look like the creeps, that is the way it is going to be.

This man, whom all of you accused here at one stage of being me, has made some valid points. Instead of attacking him address his points honestly. As I keep telling you people here and elsewhere, denial is not a river in Egypt!

Ya NUR

Dale Husband

I was born to mixed culture (Western and Iranian) and my father was Bahai . He never ONCE told me to become a Bahai , when it was evident that I did not want religion in my life there was no pressure whatsoever.  I attend Bahai classes as a child and went to social functions, but I was never "shunned" when I made my decision to NOT become a Bahai. I still have good friends from that community and am invited to social dos. The difference with the likes of me and you are that I live and let live, I do not challenge authority all the time to get my own way. You people are so hell bent on punishing Bahais for your grievences, to the level of slandering their faith and innocent people are caught in the middle of your cross fire. The type of anti-Bahai material and comments posted on this site was/is truly shocking. Bahais are just one religion among many. No religion is perfect, noone if forcing anyone to sign up. And you are free to leave.

I would suggest you research the history of individuals on this site with regards to personal attacks on religions, death wishes and inhumane remarks. After all it is you who is bringing up the subject of "Independent Investigation of Truth" so please apply it. Otherwise this becomes yet another in a long list of Bahai Bashing blogs .

Those that resort to malicious slander due to bitterness lose all credibility and sympathy even with the patient.

Reply to faryarm, corcord, and Azal

I know Baha'is are not perfect and do a lot of good. Saying that is like saying Earth is not flat and has a lot of life forms. MY point is that the Baha'i teachings and how they are practiced are no better or worse than any other form of religious dogmatism. Until you deal with that and stop sounding so superior to other religions, you will get nowhere in dealing with non-Baha'is in the spirit of truth.

 Good to see you finally got an account here, brother. Months ago the flock here where accusing me of being you.

I've been told personal attacks are not allowed here. Sad to see that some Baha'is, when confronted with the embarrasing facts, do that. That tells you more about the failings of the Faith than anything I could write about it.

Baha’is not perfect..but have a common ideal they strive attain

Couple with the independent search for the truth is also compulsory education and character building. Bahais are encouraged to put character education above just academic education

As such there are children's classes where they use the arts to teach and develop positive character by teaching universal principles as well as Bahai principles and other religions, traditions and backgrounds...through the arts and theatre, as Bahais believe they are all from ONE source.  .

As it was said before, Bahais are not perfect, but they do have a vision and standards that each individual Bahai must strive for.

The clip below is an example how an individual Bahai has put that vision to work, by bringing together children of all backgrounds to not indoctrinate , not to make Bahais, but to educate and instill positive values that in time can be used to make an intelligent , independent choice ; to try and make a difference in an indifferent, cruel and  cynical world.

The quest for unity

Thanks, Dale_Husband, for an interesting review of this essential Baha’i principle of independent search after truth, which puts an end
to blind imitation and places conscience and behaviour above traditions and rituals. I would like to clarify some points. To Baha’is, religion must promote love and understanding and if it becomes a source of misunderstanding, it would be preferable to set it aside. Prejudice, superstitions and dogmas are the true source of conflict and not religion in it’s pure state.
No one is a Baha’i by birth, but only by choice at adulthood, and as you explain, anyone can cease to be a Baha’i by choice or if his ideal no longer correspond with that of the
Baha’i Faith. As you know, although the Holy Koran abolishes compulsion in religion, some of those who practice Islam try to impose their own beliefs on others.
Your investigation of truth and that of another young girl led you away from practising a Baha’i way of life, which proves that your parents had left the door open for other engagements.  Being a parent is a difficult task; they are required to impart what they believe as best for their children and even although parents
might not actually be able to encourage their children to try out all of the many other spiritual paths, the mere idea that they are free not to enrol in the same faith as their parents is already a very important advance. As you know, outside the Baha’i Faith, many impose their ancestral rituals on their children through baptism or even irreversible acts like circumcision. They sometimes even denounce them to authorities as heretics and expose them to the
death penalty. In Iran, touching the Bible has been considered as “najest” (impure) but being born into a Baha’i family, one of the very firsts book I ever had in hand was the child’s version of the Bible and I did my primary
education in a Catholic school where I am grateful of having had the great opportunity of studying the Bible.
I know that not all Baha’i children have the opportunity to study all the other religions, but I know of many Baha’i children’s religious
classes where other religions available in their district are studied. Even more important, Baha’i children are educated to consider all the prophets of God as Divine educators equal in rank and dispensing complementary steps of the same Divine message, like successive chapters of the one and same holy book, adapted to
each day and age. Baha’is do not practice the rituals of other religions, nor do they compete with them or make a melting pot of their practices, but consider them as different aspects and viewpoints of the same truth.
The Baha’i message does not belong to Baha’is but is a gift to all humanity. Baha’is are to love all humanity, irrespective of their creed
or religion. They consider their message as a Divine Banquet open to all. Those who wish to work in the kitchen and serve at table have to enrol as Baha’is and abide by community laws. When we move from personal conscience and belief to collective actions and efforts, we need harmony and collaboration. You might love Mozart and interpret and play his music as you think best. However, if we wish to participate in a symphony, all musicians have to abide by the direction of one maestro. You cannot conduct a symphony if each musician is seeking to promote his personal understanding of Mozart.
People who enrol in a religion, publicly identifying themselves as members of that religion, but at the same time criticize the laws
and principles of that religion continuously and openly, making collective efforts difficult for others, are called apostates. Those who call themselves Baha’is but attempt to impose their own wishes on the community and disrupt the
community are expulsed as covenant breakers, as it was the case with some of the members of Baha’u’llah’s family you mentioned. As you pointed out, they did not wish to serve humanity but had ambitions for leadership and Baha’is had to avoid close contact with them in religious matters, although they were free to have normal work relations with them.
Baha’is are not perfect; they have many misgivings as individuals and as a community, but they do have a common ideal which they are
striving to attain, and to which they openly invite all those who wish to join them, whatever their origins, and this is a path towards betterment.

Hi Dale

Good to see you finally got an account here, brother. Months ago the flock here where accusing me of being you.